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Fifty years in the shadows, gently nudging Southland kids into the light.
“It’s not my story,” said Eric Sondheimer. “It’s their story.”
Fifty years of covering more than 700 high schools like they were the only school, writing about thousands of athletes as if they stood alone.
“Los Angeles is so big, I try to treat it like a small town,” Sondheimer said. “And I love writing about that town.”
Fifty years on messy sidelines, in crowded bleachers, facing angry coaches, locked in ancient stadiums, juggling impossible deadlines, all for the sake of writing deeply buried stories that might be read by only family and friends.
“But when a parent comes up to me and thanks me for writing about their child, it’s the greatest feeling in the world,” Sondheimer said.
Sportswriter Eric Sondheimer offers memories and moments from 50 years covering high school sports in the Southland.
Fifty years of childhood tales about countless young athletes, stories about future Hall of Famers, he was their first interview, stories about anonymous benchwarmers, he was their only interview, stories filling dusty scrapbooks and crooked picture frames in parents’ houses all over the Southland, stories about teenage John Elway and whiz kid Tiger Woods and some anonymous sprinter from Taft.
Let’s all join in a big pep squad cheer — gimme an E! — for Eric Sondheimer’s 50th anniversary covering high school sports in Southern California.
“I just love telling people’s stories, especially those that might not get told,” he said.
He celebrated this story as one might expect, driving all over creation last weekend to cover two league media days, then driving to Las Vegas this weekend to cover St. John Bosco’s opener against Bishop Gorman.
“My job is my life,” says Sondheimer, 67, who has been the chronicler of the sporting lives of three generations of athletes from San Clemente to Santa Barbara.
For the last 30 years, The Times has been the beneficiary of those efforts, as former Valley and Ventura edition sports editor Mike Hiserman smartly grabbed him from his long prep tenure at the Daily News in 1997 and eventually turned him loose on a region that is the greatest athletic factory in the country.
